TRUTH BE TOLD, I WOULD HAVE preferred not to write this article. To put it another way, I would have preferred a situation where such an article wasn't relevant and thus didn't need to be written. Not that long ago, such a situation certainly wasn't inconceivable—all indications (according to AMD roadmaps, anyway) were that Hammer was going to roll in and make the 760MPX a relic in both the workstation and server spaces. People with 760MPX boards would look back upon them fondly as some do the BP6 today, but integrated memory controllers and HyperTransport links would be the rule in our main systems.

Of course, it hasn't worked out that way. We're still waiting for Hammer, and the 760MPX is still AMD's answer for the server and workstation markets. We like the 760MPX chipset, though, and some of us would like to see an encore. That's because AMD's dual-processor solution packs some formidable technology, and it's still probably the best choice for building a dual-processor personal system today. So read on as we take a look at the current state of motherboards based on the AMD 760MPX chipset.